October 23 – TV Talk Show Host Day

Posted
on October 23, 2014

One
of the America's favorite TV talk shows has been The Tonight Show,
which has been on as long as I've been alive. (Translation: a
loooooong time!) It is the longest currently running regularly
scheduled entertainment program in the U.S. and the third
longest-running show of any sort on NBC. And it owes a lot of its
success to Johnny Carson, who headed the show for THIRTY years!

Johnny
Carson was so many things, which is why he was such a good host: he
was a comedian, writer, actor, musician, and an amateur magician. And
he was a skeptic who hated religious fundamentalism and superstition.
His background in magic helped him to be aware of the fact that some
people who claim to have paranormal abilities are really just doing
magic tricks. Magicians remind their audiences that they are creating
illusions – but psychics do similar sorts of tricks AND THEN LIE
ABOUT IT! Way not cool!

Carson
actually helped show up some of these psychics as fakes on his show. For example, Carson and magician James Randi showed that Israeli
so-called psychic Uri Geller was a fake; Geller was unable to
do his famous spoon-bending trick because Carson supplied the spoons. Carson and Randi teamed up again to prove that the faith healer Peter
Popoff was a charlatan. Carson also helped to support Randi's efforts
to debunk junk pseudoscience and promote skepticism by donating to
the James Randi Foundation and The Amazing Meetings.

Carson
also helped the field of science by sometimes inviting scientists
onto the show. He invited astronomer Carl Sagan onto the show 26
times!

The
fact that he helped encourage both skepticism and the popular
understanding of science are my two favorite things about Johnny
Carson! And now that he is gone, I appreciate the efforts of Jon
Stewart and Stephen Colbert as well. Hooray for comedians as talk
show hosts!

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